


amabar, amor, amabor

by Greensilver (Trelkez)



Series: Author's Favorites [4]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-06-14
Updated: 2006-06-14
Packaged: 2017-10-16 01:39:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/167045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trelkez/pseuds/Greensilver
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daniel tries to tell Jack how he feels - sixty-five times, or maybe seven.</p>
            </blockquote>





	amabar, amor, amabor

**1.**

The first time he tries to say "I love you," they're lying side-by-side in a deep valley between two mountains. Jack has one hand lifted toward the sky, and he's sketching out shapes in the clouds, his head turned just slightly toward Daniel so that Daniel can hear Jack's running commentary: a bear, a tree, a pyramid, the First Prime of Bastet.

Daniel cranes his neck to look over at Jack, who just keeps on going with the commentary, as though he hadn't just said anything the least bit unusual. "Wait, wait. The First Prime of Bastet?"

Jack pauses, hand stilling in mid-motion. "You remember her. Curvy gal, Xena armor."

Oh, right. Daniel _does_ remember her: anatomically correct breastplate, wicked right hook.

"Okay," he says, squinting up at the sky. "And one of those clouds reminded you of her?"

"Well, that's the thing about clouds, Daniel - they can look like anything you want," Jack says, exaggeratedly patient.

"Right." Daniel clasps his hands over his stomach, wondering if Jack even realizes that he's going to lose this argument, should it actually _become_ an argument. "So you just happened to be thinking about her when that cloud went by."

Jack's hand wavers against the sky. "Well, no, I-"

"Well, maybe not _consciously_ thinking," Daniel says, his tone suggesting that he's offering a compromise.

The tone, of course, is what gets Jack's back up - it always has. "It's just a _cloud_ , Daniel."

"And clouds can look like whatever you want," Daniel reminds him.

"Yes," Jack agrees, cautious.

"So your subconscious is painting women in anatomically correct armor across the sky," Daniel says, just to make sure.

Jack is the only person Daniel knows who can pack whole realms of aggravation into a single word, just one word, " _Daniel_ ," like every irritating thing on every planet they've ever visited has culminated in the terse exhalation of those two syllables.

Daniel thinks, _I love you_.

He even opens his mouth to say it. He says it to Sam all the time, and even Janet on occasion; the words are right there, ready to roll off his tongue.

At that precise moment, the First Prime of Bastet opens up, and Daniel is soaked to the bone before he even realizes that it's raining.

\---

**(2 to 59.)**

The next fifty-eight times follow quickly on the heels of that first try, and Daniel doesn't remember any of them.

The second time, Jack is standing at the chalkboard translating lines of Latin with a flippant air that suggests the whole thing is one big joke: Ancients, time travel, Latin. He even finishes the last word off with a little flourish, and then he tosses the chalk stub into the trash can with his eyes shut.

He dusts his hands off on his uniform, leaving broad streaks of chalk on his pants. "What, no applause?"

Daniel wonders how many times Jack has taken that shot, how many times he's made it, how many times other Daniels have wondered these exact same things -

"Forty-six, thirty-nine, and God only knows," Jack says, unsmiling; apparently even one-upping Daniel like this isn't amusing anymore.

Daniel thinks about it for a moment, and says, "You missed seven times?"

Jack looks surprised.

Daniel feels like the smartest person on the planet, the smartest Daniel that Jack has yet encountered in any of his repeat days, and maybe that unexpected surge of well-being is what temporarily disconnects his mouth from his common sense.

He doesn't even stop to think about it, just rises and leans across a sea of artifacts and Latin textbooks, planting his hands on the tabletop for balance. Jack is watching him, visibly uncertain, and Daniel knows without a doubt that this is something none of the other Daniels have done. "Jack, I-"

"Daniel." Jack's voice his flat, but there's a hint of panic in his eyes, in the thin line of his mouth; maybe Daniel has given away his intent with his expression, his body language. "You won't remember, but _I_ will."

Daniel wonders what exactly it is Jack thinks he's about to be told. He _must_ know that Daniel loves him, that he's the best friend Daniel has; would saying it really be so much of a leap?

"I know," Daniel says. Wheelock's Latin is between his flattened palms, open to a chapter on third declension verbs. Jack recited the entire page from memory, including the review questions, and Daniel's amazement hadn't surprised him, Daniel's praise hadn't meant a thing. "I know, and I'm sorry."

Jack stares at him, the panic fading. "Yeah, Daniel, I know you are. You always are."

He's sorry for a different reason than the other Daniels, he thinks; he's sorry because there's something going on here, some message he won't have time to decipher. More than that, he's sorry for Jack, because all too soon Jack will be alone again - or worse; he'll be with a Daniel who has a clean slate, who won't remember this conversation, who'll want to repeat it. There could be hundreds of those Daniels after this, and maybe they'll all say the exact same things, never getting any closer to saying the _right_ thing.

When the next Daniel tries to say it, Jack cuts him off with, "I know, I know, you're sorry," and his voice is bitter, but his eyes are still faintly panicked. That Daniel knows he wasn't the first to make the attempt, and so does the next Daniel, and so do ten more Daniels after that, and then the fourteenth Daniel in the sequence doesn't see any panic in Jack's eyes, none at all.

"No, I'm not sorry," he says, and feels a tiny thrill when Jack looks surprised. "I wasn't going to give you platitudes, Jack, I'm sure you've heard that enough."

Jack doesn't say anything. He just shakes his head, shoulders tensing up.

That's all the fourteenth Daniel has to see to realize why his predecessors apologized.

The fifteenth Daniel doesn't even get as far as _I_ ; he only manages to say, "Jack-"

"No, Daniel," Jack snaps, and slaps a hand back against the chalkboard, sending up a small cloud of white dust. "Focus on _this_. Get me out of here."

When they get back to the translation, Jack acts like nothing ever happened, and that's how it is for the next forty-two cycles.

When the fifty-eighth Daniel in the sequence tries to tell Jack that he loves him, Jack doesn't snap, he doesn't slap the chalkboard, he just says, utterly defeated: "Daniel, I swear to God, I'm never picking up this piece of chalk again."

And he doesn't, not even after the loop ends.

\---

**2 (60).**

The second time (or the sixtieth, depending), he's sitting on the edge of a bed in the infirmary. He isn't really thinking about Jack, or love; he's thinking about Sarah Gardner, about Robert Rothman, about hate, _rage_. He's thinking about how badly he'd like to kill every Goa'uld that has ever existed, and how he'd like to do it himself, with his own hands, every single one, until there aren't any more and won't ever be, ever again.

He's thinking about genocide.

Then Jack comes in, hands in his pockets, casual as anything. "Hey, Daniel." Just like that, just that easily, like Daniel isn't looking past him, into him, seeing only a brainstem and a mouthpiece; like Daniel isn't wondering about the nature of inevitability, whether Jack will be a friend like Jolinar or an enemy like Osiris, whether it ultimately even matters.

"Every year, I read an article about a lake where algae took over and killed all the fish," Daniel says, taking his glasses off to polish them on his shirt. Maybe if he can't see Jack, he won't think those things. "Every year. Just algae."

Daniel can tell by Jack's voice that he's frowning. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." He slides his glasses back on so that he can _see_ Jack's frown, can measure the depth of it. "I've been thinking. About that lake, on P3X-888."

"P3X-888," Jack repeats, uncertain.

"Chaka's planet," Daniel says, looking away. " _That_ lake. All those Goa'uld."

Jack hesitates for just a moment before he clasps Daniel's shoulder. "We'll get her back, Daniel."

"I'm pretty sure you said that about my wife," Daniel says, and Jack's fingers dig in tight for a split-second before he jerks away, completely silent.

He didn't mean it, he really didn't - it's just that he's so _angry_ , and too weary to keep up that kind of anger for very long. He wants to burn, right now, while he can; he wants to pretend that he can be the kind of guy who could wipe out an entire species. He wants to think about Sarah, Robert, Kawalsky, Sha're, and every planet they've ever been to just after Jaffa have burned a village, just after a System Lord has taken new slaves.

Jack hasn't left, he's just standing there with his back to Daniel, and Daniel has no idea what to say to him. _I just can't take any more_ , maybe, and _I can't watch that happen to you_ , and most of all, _I love you_ , because it's true, and he's just starting to realize the full extent of what that means.

"I'm sorry," he says, and he means all of those things, even though he can't bring himself to actually say any of them.

Jack's voice is a little rough when he says, "I know you are, Daniel."

\---

**(3. 61.)**

Years pass before Daniel tries to say it again - ten years, a full decade. At one end of that decade, he's young and vital, and _sure_ of himself, too sure; at the other end, he feels old, older than he should, and he isn't sure of anything.

Or, at least, he isn't sure about the intangibles. The tangible things, _those_ he knows.

He knows that Jack's lips are chapped, that Jack tastes like whiskey and stale beer. He knows that Jack has quite possibly forgotten how to shave, because there are rough patches scattered along Jack's jaw, and Daniel's mouth finds all of them. He knows what it feels like to have the full weight of Jack's body pressing him back against a wall, knows what it sounds like Jack's voice breaks as he says Daniel's name, low and angry.

Still angry, after a decade.

Maybe the intangibles are starting to seem more certain, too.

They're touching for seconds, a minute at most, and even that is too long. They've got less than an hour before the flare - less than fifty minutes, now - and every second they waste here, together, is one second less they'll have to execute their plan.

If there's one thing Daniel knows for sure, more certain even than the lingering touch of Jack's hands, it's that he'd like nothing more than to be ten years younger and a whole lot smarter, with all the time in the world. A minute isn't enough time. Fifty minutes aren't enough time. Ten years wouldn't be enough time - _won't_ be, even if he manages to live the last decade over again, even if he manages to do things differently.

That thought is what gets him to finally put it in words - on the third try, or maybe the sixty-first.

"I love you," he says, and it's a whisper, almost inaudible, because anyone might be close enough to hear.

Jack doesn't say it back, he doesn't smile, he doesn't tense up; he doesn't have any reaction, really. He just grabs Daniel's arm, kisses him again, and gives him a shove to get him moving.

That might mean _I_ _love you, too_. Daniel isn't sure.

\---

**(1.)**

The first time the synthetic Daniel Jackson tries to say _I love you_ to his Jack O'Neill is also the last time, because that Daniel is about to die, and they both know it.

He can't actually say the words, not here, not now. Instead, he just stares at Jack for a moment, willing Jack to see it on his face: _I love you_ and _I'm sorry_ and _it isn't your fault_ and _get out of here alive_ , all of it.

None of it is likely to translate, because this Jack, like so many versions of Jack O'Neill, can be pretty obtuse when it comes to figuring out that someone loves him. Daniel has come to think of it as a fatal flaw in Jack's programming.

So Daniel looks away and closes his eyes, and thinks, with his last few seconds of functionality, about the ironic nature of hearts, both human and android. They aren't supposed to be anything more than pumps and valves, after all, and it isn't really a _heart_ that feels love, whether that heart is organic or mechanical; the brain is what does it, neurons firing, electricity flowing, messages being transmitted from one place to another. Love is just a message, and the heart has nothing to do with it.

But somewhere along the way, a neuron misfires, a message gets all turned around; the heart skips a beat, and the brain - ever irrational, no matter how perfectly wired - thinks, _ah, it must be love_.

His heart beats one more time, and stops.

\---

**3 (61).**

The third time, Jack isn't even listening; he's sitting within arm's reach, staring right at Daniel, but mind is somewhere else entirely.

They haven't been alone for hours, and probably won't ever be alone again. Sam has been haunting the observation room, and Daniel is too conscious of her presence to make any of the last-minute confessions that he's always thought of as being appropriate deathbed moments.

"Jack," he says, more than a little bit aggravated that he can't just snap his fingers a few times. "Hey, Jack."

"Yeah, Daniel," Jack says, his voice frustratingly steady.

"You don't have to sit here all the time." Daniel makes a slight gesture with one bandaged hand, and just that faint movement sends a fresh wave of pain up his arm. "Go away. Go ... do something."

More than anything Daniel has ever said, that means _I love you_ , because he desperately wants Jack to stay.

"Maybe in a few minutes," Jack says, shifting a bit to get more comfortable.

\---

**4 (62).**

He isn't really Daniel Jackson the next time he tries to say it; he doesn't even really know who Daniel Jackson is. All he knows is that when he looks at Jack O'Neill, he feels something like an echo of love, a dim, half-formed memory of a feeling that isn't his. He feels the same thing for Sam, for Teal'c, even for the doctor and the General; it isn't an exclusive feeling, but there's a different quality to it when he looks at Jack, and he doesn't immediately understand why that is.

When they're separated, when he and Jack are caught up in two entirely different spheres of action, that's when it hits him: whoever Jack O'Neill is, he _loves_ that man. Or at least, Daniel Jackson does, and it's becoming nearly irrefutable that Daniel Jackson is inside of him, just beneath the surface.

Later, when the action is over and he's in Daniel's office, picking through piles of vaguely familiar artifacts, he tries to tell Jack. It never occurs to him that Jack doesn't already know; he just wants to reassure Jack, to let Jack know that he's starting to remember.

"He cares, you know," Arrom says, flipping over a shard of pottery.

Jack goes still, utterly still.

Arrom realizes that he used the wrong pronoun, and tries to correct himself. "I mean, _I_ care."

Jack still isn't moving, hasn't turned to look at him, and Arrom starts to realize he's made a mistake.

"About all of you," he adds, and flips over a few more shards, trying to play it off.

Jack relaxes, and finally turns around, smiling just a little. "Yeah, we know."

"Good," Arrom says, and smiles back, wondering how much more of what he thinks he knows will turn out to not actually be true.

\---

**5 (63).**

Daniel is almost positive that Jack can't understand him, this time; Jack is pretty far gone, and even Latin doesn't seem to be reaching his ears.

"Jack," he says, grabbing Jack's arm to get his attention. Jack looks up at him, watching him, waiting. He doesn't look like he expects to understand Daniel, any more than Daniel expects to be understood, but he has to try; he isn't sure he'll ever have the chance to take another shot at this. Daniel _knows_ Latin, better now than he did in grad school, and he knows he can find the right words to make Jack understand one very basic idea.

"Te amo," he tries, starting out simple. _I love you_. That doesn't seem to register, so he tries again: "ego te amo," for emphasis. Still nothing. "Te adamabam," _I fell in love with you_ , and so long as he's going for broke on things he would never say in English, "te depereo," _I'm desperately in love with you_.

That's a good one, _depereo_ : desperately in love, lost, destroyed. Last-minute sentiments, come and gone in moments when one of them is about to die. Every other day of the year, _amo_ is the word that goes unsaid; in moments of heightened mortality, _depereo_ is the correct form, or maybe _depeream_ , just to play it safe.

None of it sparks the slightest change in Jack's expression.

He squeezes Jack's arm, hard enough to make Jack flinch. "Te amabo."

 _I will love you_. Daniel is an optimist.

\---

**6 (64).**

The sixth attempt isn't made with words. Daniel is on one end of Jack's couch, and Jack is on the other, and neither of them are even pretending to watch whatever game is on. Jack is staring at his beer, and has been for so long that the bottle isn't perspiring anymore and the beer inside is probably lukewarm at best. Daniel is reading a years-old _Time_ magazine, and Jack doesn't seem to notice that Daniel has been reading the same page for half an hour.

Jack's bottle slips, just a fraction of an inch, and his hands clench around it so hard that his knuckles go white.

Daniel drops the magazine to the floor, slides down the couch, and pries the bottle out of Jack's hands. That gets set aside, too, and then Daniel pulls Jack into a hug, expecting Jack to resist.

Instead, Jack wraps both arms around him and holds on tight, almost too tight. One hand is on Daniel's waist, one hand is cupping the back of his neck, and Jack's mouth is right at his ear when he whispers, "Daniel, you know I should've done it."

Daniel can't really argue with that; after all, he said it himself. If Jack had blown the ship, there wouldn't be six planets' worth of the Goa'uld toxin out there, and six planets were worth three lives.

"I can't get too angry about being alive, Jack," he says, because it sounds like Jack is looking for absolution, and that's the best Daniel can offer.

"I guess people _do_ change," Jack says, loosening his grip on Daniel just enough to pull back and give him a slight smile. It's probably supposed to be a joke, but his voice is flat, almost hard.

When Daniel kisses him, it isn't to say _I love you_ , because he's pretty sure Jack already knows. It's just a kiss, his hands on Jack's skin, his teeth scraping across Jack's lower lip, his body pressing Jack's into the couch; simple things, surface-level things.

But then Jack pulls away, looking cornered, hunted, and he whispers, "Daniel, this is why I didn't give the order, _this_ is why, and I can't-"

So Daniel kisses him again, and this time it's a farewell, a retreat, this time it's _I love you_.

He grabs his jacket and leaves without a fight, and that's _I love you_ , too.

\---

**(7. 65.)**

Years later, or maybe centuries before, Daniel is in Egypt, and he's alone.

Oh, there are people with him, and their faces are familiar, as familiar as his own; but he's alone, just the same.

He wants to be rid of them. He wants to leave the village behind and them in it, so that he never has to look at any of them again. He wants it so badly that he almost doesn't care that they don't have a Daniel of their own, that they don't know how to survive here, that they don't know the language or the customs. He wants it so badly that he almost _does_ leave; he packs a bag and heads through the village, toward the open desert, knowing there's another village within two days' walk.

They don't know that. They won't be able to follow him, not right away.

He gets as far as the outer edge of the marketplace, and then Jack - the other Jack, the new one - steps into his path and says, "Hey, Daniel. Whatcha doing?"

They aren't supposed to speak English in public, but the new Sam and the new Jack didn't know any spoken Egyptian whatsoever, and they've been a pain in the ass to teach. At least _his_ Sam and _his_ Jack knew a few words, and they were quick learners, both.

"I'm walking the market," Daniel says, and he isn't even speaking local Egyptian; he's speaking Abydonian, and the dialect is different enough that Jack clearly doesn't understand a single word, not even _market_. Jack starts to look a little pissed, at that point, and Daniel relents, switching to English: "I'm just going for a walk, Jack."

"Yeah?" Jack smiles a little. "With all your stuff?"

He doesn't even _look_ like Jack, not really; he stands differently, walks differently. He doesn't act exactly like Jack, and his memories are different, his whole reality is different.

But his core personality is the same, and when Daniel looks in his eyes, he sees _Jack_ , his Jack.

The desert seems like a better option.

Maybe Jack sees that on Daniel's face, because he says, quietly: "Come on, Daniel. You're not _really_ gonna leave us here."

Oh, but he would, if only Jack would let him. Either Jack. Every Jack he's ever known.

"No, of course not," he says, and he means it, for now.

That's another _I love you_ , even if it isn't directed at the Jack O'Neill in front of him.

\---

**7 (65).**

Jack's bed is just barely large enough to accomodate two people; his entire DC apartment is like that, actually, and they've been running into each other all day, bumping elbows, tripping over each other's feet. Daniel doesn't mind the close quarters in bed - obviously not, or he wouldn't be naked - but the apartment is another matter, and Jack can probably afford a bigger one on a General's salary, anyway.

A bigger bed wouldn't hurt, either, but Daniel figures he'll take things one step at a time: apartment first, _then_ bed.

Jack is sprawled across Daniel's chest, pinning him to the bed, and he's in the midst of a slow, almost lazy exploration of Daniel's mouth that's been going on  for at least five minutes. Daniel appreciates the attention, he really does, but there are other things Jack could be doing with his mouth, and Daniel wouldn't object to any of them.

Daniel hooks a leg around one of Jack's, slides his hands down to Jack's waist, and thrusts his hips. Jack exhales sharply into Daniel's mouth and breaks off the kiss, squinting down at him. "Not very patient."

"Well, you kinda tore my clothes off and shoved me onto your bed," Daniel says, raising his eyebrows. "It was all very caveman, but it _did_ set a precedent."

Jack is almost smiling. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." Daniel digs his fingers into Jack's hips. "The apparent devolution I could forgive, but the _precedent_ -"

Jack kisses him again, maybe to shut him up; that would be a very Jack thing to do.

The next time Daniel speaks, Jack is asleep, or looks it - the blanket is pulled up almost over Jack's head, and all Daniel can see is one outflung arm and Jack's short, messy gray hair. There isn't any color left there, at all; even the darker shades of gray are disappearing, giving way to silver.

"Te amo," Daniel whispers, not sure Jack will hear.

"Yeah?" Jack's voice is muffled by the blanket. "Is that supposed to be funny?" 

Daniel thinks about that one for a moment. "Non scio."

"Non scio?" Jack's voice is still barely audible, so Daniel pulls the blanket down to his shoulders. Jack watches him through heavy-lidded eyes, right on the verge of sleep. "Do you speak any languages I know, Dr. Jackson?"

"I thought so." Daniel drops his head down onto the pillows, so that they're eye-to-eye. "It's awful convenient, the way you manage to forget Latin every time you learn it."

"Hmm," is all Jack says, just a low, noncommital sound.

"Mmhmm." Daniel reaches under the blanket to poke Jack in the ribs. "Amabar, amor, amabor."

 _I was loved, I am loved, I will be loved_.

Jack's smile is all in his eyes. "Te ... ditto."

"Ego te amo," Daniel prompts, and pokes him in the ribs again.

"Ow, hey," Jack says, grabbing Daniel's hand. "Fine. _Ego_ te ditto."

"Close enough," Daniel says, leaning in for a kiss. "But your conjugation could use a little work."


End file.
